


A Terrible Idea

by cissyalice



Series: your life was my life's best part [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Apocalyptic Roadtrip, F/F, Flashback, Past Sexual Assault, first year of the apocalypse, humor with a dusting of angst, some gory descriptions but if you watch the walking dead i figure you're pretty much prepared for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28069494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissyalice/pseuds/cissyalice
Summary: "I used to drive around my grandparents' farm all the time as a kid, can't be too much harder than that," Magna had said with a shrug, failing to be bothered.The lawyer in Yumiko had jerked back at this information and the legality of it.But she'd ultimately acquiesced - negotiating with her more rational inner voice that, at this point, fatigued and blurry-eyed, she was more likely to crash her car than Magna.It had taken her no time at all to come to regret that decision.. . .Or Miko decides to let Magna drive for once.This is a terrible idea.
Relationships: Magna/Yumiko (Walking Dead)
Series: your life was my life's best part [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676368
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	A Terrible Idea

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back bitches! Did you miss me?
> 
> This takes place an indeterminate time after Magna and Yumiko have been forced to move on from the farm.
> 
> This is NOT the yumiko-centric fic I promised. That's a multi-chap that will be coming later down the line.
> 
> Trigger warning: self-prescribing of medication (it's the Apocolypse so not much to do about that), past sexual-assault, anxiety/implied OCD, depictions of gore (this is the walking dead so)

_One, two, three, four, five, six._ Yumiko tapped out the rhythm on her thigh, biting her lip as she watched the never-ending sea of destruction on the roadside as they passed.

_One._ She swiped her pointer finger up her leg.

There were bodies everywhere. Both dead and undead.

_One, two, three, four, five, six. Two._ Swipe.

They'd been driving for over an hour and there'd been little variation in the scenery. They'd honestly just been fortunate enough not to hit any major roadblocks considering the number of cars they'd found crashed or broken down on the way. So far, they'd been able to weave through and around them, but she couldn't see that keeping up.

Yumiko had driven all day yesterday and Magna had offered - practically forced her into it, really - to take over this morning. The plan seemed flawed on many accounts. The most glaring being that Magna still had yet to get a license.

Though, her odds of obtaining one _now_ had certainly flown out the window.

"I used to drive around my grandparents' farm all the time as a kid, can't be too much harder than that," Magna had said with a shrug, failing to be bothered.

The lawyer in Yumiko had jerked back at this information and the legality of it.

But she'd ultimately acquiesced - negotiating with her more rational inner voice that, at this point, fatigued and blurry-eyed, she was more likely to crash her car than Magna.

It had taken her no time at all to come to regret that decision.

The car lurched as they ploughed over something else that Yumiko wouldn't let herself think about.

"What is that, Morse code?" Magna's voice broke the train of her thoughts and, noticing that her gaze had traveled to Yumiko's hand, she fought the urge to snap at the younger woman to keep her eyes on the road.

At this point, it was almost a matter of certainty that they were going to crash.

She smiled uncomfortably, forcing her hand to still. "No, just a nervous habit."

"Right." Magna, mercifully, turned her attention back to the road - and just in time to avoid a dead-eyed granny with her walker. "Got some of those myself."

Yumiko's smile turned amused. "I'm not sure you can classify sharpening knives as a nervous habit. It's more likely to make everyone else nervous."

"Yep." Magna smirked. "Just one reason why I find it soothing."

Yumiko rolled her eyes and turned back to the road, though her smile refused to falter.

_One, two, three, four, five, six. Four._ Swipe.

She grimaced when she saw Magna's gaze flick back down to her thigh again.

_Stop it._

"Look, I know you're all hung up on the license thing but I'm really not that bad."

As nervous as they might make her, Magna's driving skills were really the least of her worries right now. She couldn't get the image of the family they'd passed twenty minutes ago out of her head: the lumbering parents circling an overturned vehicle; a little girl trailing behind them with her head smashed in; a decaying baby on the sidewalk, wriggling sickeningly but unable to turn over - like some macabre impersonation of a turtle on its back.

And that scene wasn't isolated. She knew there must be many more like it all over the country.

All over the world, even.

There'd been no confirmation that it had spread that far. The singular news station available on Magna's dying TV had departed into radio silence before getting the chance to even broach the topic.

But it seemed likely.

Her mother was- _had_ been a doctor, and one who was more than a little obsessed with germs and contaminants - though, that was partly Yumiko's fault. So she understood how quickly illnesses and diseases could spread and this one seemed to be traveling faster than the common cold. If just _one_ person had been infected on an airplane then it was hard to see how this could have remained an isolated national incident. Not to mention, they still weren't entirely sure of how it spread in the first place.

Bites and scratches, obviously. But that didn't explain why, when a person died, they contracted the infection as well, rose up again as one of those _things_. That had to mean they were sick before then. But how?

Was it airborne? Spread by water? By food?

If that was the case, then did she and Magna even stand a chance?

What if they already had it and just didn't know?

Maybe their bodies were slowly giving out on them, day by day, cells mutating or decaying without any outward sign.

Yumiko had to close her eyes, take a breath.

That smacked a little too much of the past, of a life she'd long since outgrown.

_One, two, three, four, five, six. Five._ Swipe.

If the infection was airborne, there was no hope for the rest of the world. For any of them.

Another breath and she called to mind what Magna had said.

" _Look, I know you're all hung up on the license thing but I'm really not that bad."_

Just in time, too, for the other woman had taken her silence as a bad sign and continued the conversation without her.

"I'm doing great. Both us and the car are still in one piece. Admit it, I'm acing this."

There was a nervous edge to Magna's voice, though, that she couldn't quite hide and Yumiko knew that her own anxiety was starting to infect her.

She clenched her hand, let out a breath.

The words did bring her some amusement - and bucket loads of disbelief.

"You've hit nine people already."

Magna scoffed. "Dead people. Not my fault they walked into my car."

" _My_ car," best to correct that now, lest the other woman get any ideas. "And as your lawyer, I feel the need to point out that such a defense really wouldn't hold up in court when you _don_ _'t have a license_."

"And I feel the need to point out that you're not my lawyer anymore, we don't even _have_ laws anymore. So lighten up."

Yumiko sighed and settled back into her seat. She wasn't _anybody_ _'s_ lawyer anymore. Might never be again.

The realization upset her more than she had the presence of mind to handle right now. She pushed it to the back of her awareness, searching around for a distraction, another thread of conversation.

"Why did you fail your driving test again?"

Magna winced slightly. "Too easily distracted. Couldn't stay focused on the road."

Knowing the other woman, that didn't really surprise her. "You're filling me with confidence."

"In my defense, pretty sure the dude _actually_ failed me cos I smacked him in the face after I grew tired of him trying to grope me."

Yumiko turned on her with wide eyes.

Magna blinked at her. "What? That didn't happen with you?"

" _No._ "

Now her hands were itching to do something altogether different from tapping. And she'd never been a violent person.

Magna shrugged. "He had a reputation for it. He was like the only driving instructor in town and I overhead other girls talking about it. Not to _me,_ cos girls never talked to me, but I heard."

"And no-one ever complained?"

"Some did. Nothing ever came of it. It was just one of those things that was accepted. He was also the mayor's cousin, so I guess that helped." She shrugged once more, not seeming at all bothered by this string of facts, which was almost as disconcerting as the facts themselves. "Besides, he was the only guy in town who actually wanted to spend his days putting his life in the hands of a bunch of reckless teenagers. No-one else ever signed up for the job so they kept him."

Yumiko frowned, at least now she had something else to be upset about besides dead children. Though, she found it difficult to be grateful for that.

Magna had a habit of dropping horrifying anecdotes into casual conversation - probably because, to her, they _weren_ _'t_ horrifying.

Yumiko was endeavoring to get used to it - and failing.

She could understand Magna's side of it, though. Yumiko had been guilty of doing the same with elements of her own life. Things that were normal for her but unimaginable to others.

It was one of the reasons she'd stopped speaking of those things.

"I don't understand how that could be allowed to continue." She wasn't naive. She was familiar with the world they lived in, the corruption and abuses that could so easily be gotten away with. But it sounded like this wasn't even a secret - or the most terribly kept one in history - and something in her rebelled at the notion that so _many_ people could stand by and do nothing.

Magna didn't share her disbelief. "Shit like that happened. And everybody knew that it happened. There's a reason two-thirds of the girls in town got sent into the city by their parents to get a license. But nobody talked about it." She shrugged. "Culture of silence and all that."

Yumiko wondered if that was what had gone wrong with Maisie. The girl who had dared to speak.

Brian Lawson must have thought he'd found himself in one of the most ideal environments on the planet for a predator. Even after she'd told the truth, asked for help, nothing permanent had come of it.

She'd been abandoned by the system.

Magna, too. So many times.

It was a small comfort that such a system no longer existed when Yumiko had once built her entire life around it - and now found herself flailing blindly without its support.

"Why did nobody talk about it?"

"I mean, they talked about it, they must have, cos most everyone knew. But they didn't _talk_ talk, you know?" Magna's fingers drummed out a beat on the steering wheel. "That sort of stuff, it's shameful. Most think the girls were doing something to make it happen or some shit. And even if they weren't, too many important people were caught up in it. I think it was just easier. To pretend like nothing was wrong. The churches in our town had a lot of power and shit. And loads of them were mixed up in it. Add the mayor to that and well..."

Yumiko remembered that Lawson had been the brother of the pastor of one such church - Magna's church. "Did anything ever, with you..."

Magna shook her head. "Pretty sure they all saw me as more trouble than I was worth. And I never really hung out around church more than I had to, anyway. Never really hung out anywhere, with anyone. Except..." Her hands clenched on the steering wheel.

Except with Maisie. And Morgan.

"If something like that were to happen, it would have been in-house. And my family were shit but they weren't _that_ kind of shit. Not that I knew, anyway." She snorted. "Guess they had some standards, after all."

Yumiko wasn't sure being physically and emotionally abusive in the absence of sexual abuse could be considered a standard.

"The point is," Magna continued, "I'm probably not that bad a driver." There was a thud as she ran over some scrap metal that _really_ could have been avoided. "Guy was just being a dick. Called the police on me and everything - it was barely even a _slap,_ might I add - but luckily I was a tiny girl and there wasn't any physical evidence to back him up so they let it go. Mostly think they didn't want the headache getting involved would bring." She smirked slightly. "The one time the law didn't fuck with me."

Yumiko scowled. "They should have arrested him for sexual assault."

"They wouldn't do it for the seven other girls who the town actually _liked._ No way they were going to do it for the town reject. Especially when so many of the other guys in town _also_ had a reputation for being handsy, including the cops." At Yumiko's questioning look, "It was a small town. Hard to keep anything a secret. No-one talks about that shit but somehow everyone still knows."

Yumiko exhaled. "I'm sorry. That you went through that."

Magna took her eyes off the road momentarily to spare her a weird look, as if she'd just spouted gibberish. "It's fine. Shit happens. And that never really even rang a bell."

She didn't want to think about what that said about what else Magna might have gone through, if she considered _that_ nothing. . .

But, then again, Magna had a tendency to consider anything that happened to her as nothing. It was the things that happened to _others_ that caused her the most distress. It was why Maisie had affected her so badly.

Yumiko could understand that. She'd never been able to tolerate seeing other people suffer, either, especially those she cared about.

If she had a trigger point, that was it.

She couldn't stand injustice.

Couldn't stand her loved ones being hurt.

It was the surest way to get her to lose her temper. She'd never been sparked to physical blows like Magna, but she'd certainly given her fair share of verbal lashings - and she'd been assured they could be downright terrifying.

But this similarity between them had been one of the things that drew her to Magna in the first place, made her want to cross over that professional divide. Something she had never done with a client before.

Magna's great propensity to care wasn't something that most people picked up on, not at first, but Yumiko had recognized it fairly quickly into their acquaintance.

Like calling to like, if you will.

"Well, then I'm sorry for giving you a hard time about the license. I didn't know."

Magna blew out a breath. "I mean, I probably was too easily distracted. And I _might_ have run two red lights and almost hit a sausage dog."

"Two- Magna!"

"In my defense, they were green when I first noticed them."

"When you first- I think I should drive."

She should definitely drive. If she believed in God, she would have thought Satan had taken hold of her the moment she agreed to let Magna take the wheel.

What had she been thinking?

_You make terrible decisions when you_ _'re tired, Yumiko. Just terrible._

Magna smiled slow at her, amusement plain. "Relax, Miko. It's not like traffic lights are something we need to worry about anymore. Or sausage dogs, for that matter."

"You nearly ran over a _dog_?"

She shrugged. "But I didn't. So it's all good."

Yumiko stared at her. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

"Hey, it hasn't worked out so bad from where I'm sitting. We're all still in one piece. Including your car." She patted the dash a little too roughly.

Yumiko could beg to differ. "My car is covered in dead body parts. There's _brain_ on the windshield."

Magna had the decency to at least look _slightly_ chagrined at this, grimacing at said brain matter. "But it's still in one piece so. Point stands."

Yumiko sighed and lurched back in her seat, closing her eyes. "I need a Valium."

Magna tsked. "Drugs are never the answer, Miko."

She groaned.

A pause.

"I swiped some from the old lady's medicine cabinet." Jill, Yumiko corrected mentally. Her name was _Jill._ _"_ Woman had a goddamn pharmacy in there. There's a packet in the glove compartment."

"Oh, thank god." She sprung up as if revived, fumbling for said compartment. When her eyes lighted on the small - opened - package, she almost sagged with relief. She'd been struggling without her own supply for the last few months, though she hadn't mentioned it to Magna. She wasn't dependent on it and tended only to rely on the medication in times of high stress. The Apocalypse had certainly made her redefine what she considered to be 'high stress'.

She didn't need to ask what Magna had been doing stealing Valium from the deceased. She'd been cagey about it every time Yumiko tried to broach the subject, but she knew the other woman was struggling without her own meds - the ones she'd been relying on for the past couple of years. She didn't recall Valium being one of them but it was likely to do in a pinch to replace the benzos she'd been using until now.

Normally she'd frown on self-subscribing, but it wasn't like they could pop into a doctor or psychiatrist's office for a prescription these days.

Eventually, they would have to learn to cope without medication altogether.

She knew it would be easier for her as she'd already been weaning off her own regimen during the last year or so, and she was used to going on and off medication, regardless. But she knew it was still very new to Magna, who'd only begun therapy whilst in prison. She also knew that she'd only just settled into a group of medications and dosages that seemed to work for her.

Really, the Apocalypse's timing couldn't have been worse.

Already, she'd seen the effects of going without on the other woman, though Magna did her best to hide it.

She wished she wouldn't.

Yumiko stared at the packet in her hand as though she'd just been handed her firstborn child. "I'm still really pissed at you right now but honest to god I could kiss you in this moment."

The car swerved.

"Magna!"

"Sorry! Sorry."

For the first time she felt grateful that they were no longer towing a float with two skittish horses behind them.

Yumiko watched the other woman through narrowed eyes, taking in the now stiff set to her shoulders, before she was assured that they weren't going to both lose their lives in the next ten seconds.

If she didn't know any better. . .

Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought.

When things seemed to be somewhat stable again - there were no more sudden jerks, at least - Yumiko turned her attention back to the packet in her hand, scanning the label.

2mg. Okay.

She went through the familiar routine of cataloging her thoughts and sensations, estimating her anxiety level. She concluded from her internal check that 4mg would be better but not necessarily wise. They only had a limited supply of Valium and it would be smarter to ration it - there were likely to be many moments in the future that were far more stressful than enduring Magna's questionable driving skills.

Probably.

Medication was about to become a privilege of the past. That was going to be an adjustment. Yumiko couldn't remember a time in her life when she hadn't been on some form of medication or another.

She'd already felt the toll of that over the past few months, the fluctuations in her physical and mental health that weren't entirely down to the everyday trauma of living through an Apocalypse. At the end of every meal, her anxiety flared, a disquieting sense that she was missing something, that her old routine had been abandoned.

But of all the stresses she'd dealt with lately, that was the easiest to manage.

She was used to change. She'd never liked it, but she was used to it.

She would get used to this, too.

Reluctantly, she popped one free. At least it would take the edge off. Sighing, she reached for her water bottle and swallowed the pill, praying that relief would be swift.

The car turned suddenly and Yumiko's breasts protested as they were crushed against the seatbelt.

She closed her eyes as the world shifted back into place. "I swear to god, Magna, if you crash this car I'm going to haunt your arse."

There was a pause. "So what you're saying is, if I crash this car I've just gotta make sure it kills us both? That way I won't still be here for you to haunt. Sounds easy enough."

Yumiko groaned. "No, Magna, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying. . . _don_ _'t crash my car._ This isn't Thelma and Louise for god's sake, _"_ she muttered the last part under her breath, glad that they weren't anywhere near the Grand Canyon, at least.

Small blessings.

"Alright, chill. I'm not going to crash your car."

Something smacked against the bumper, jostling the passengers of said car.

There was a slight screech as an object of unknown origin - likely a piece of metal - got caught up in the tire. They both winced, waiting for the sound to die out and the motion of the car to return to normal.

The vehicle lurched a moment before steadying once more, though the engine made a few dissatisfied croaks.

There was a brief pause.

"That doesn't count as a crash."

"I'm going to kill you."

"I'm sure it didn't even leave a scratch," Magna said, peering out her side window as if she could somehow get a look from there.

"Eyes on the road, Magna!"

She jolted, straightening up and fixing her eyes to the path in front of them once more.

_Thank god._

Yumiko sighed, closing her own. She couldn't bear to watch anymore. "How much driving experience do you actually have?"

"Well," Magna thought about it a moment, "I was awesome at Mario Kart."

She was going to die.

She'd survived the first two months of the Apocalypse and she was going to die in some stupid crash because she'd - in a brief moment of insanity - relinquished her car to a madwoman. "I really am going to kill you."

"I thought you were a pacifist," Magna piped up, not at all helpfully.

"Not for very much longer," Yumiko muttered mutinously.

The other woman's eyes darted to her a moment before she - wisely - chose to remain silent.

It didn't last. Something in the distance caught Magna's attention and she squinted. "Wait, is that a dog?"

Yumiko slammed her hand on the dashboard. "Pullover. I'm driving."

But the other woman shook her head, mouth twitching. "Can't drug and drive. You're a lawyer, thought you would know that." Her tone was playfully scolding and Yumiko resisted the urge to smack her.

"Did you tell me about the Valium so I wouldn't be able to drive?"

Magna busied herself with looking out the side window, possibly at the poor dog she was seconds away from running over.

"Magna!"

She couldn't believe it.

The other woman had the grace to look slightly guilty. "You're tired as hell, Miko. You need to rest."

"Do I _look_ like I'm resting?" Being Magna's passenger was _far_ more exhausting than what driving oneself on only two hours of sleep would have been.

"Well, that's what the Valium is for." All traces of repentance were gone and she actually looked quite proud of herself.

Yumiko closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "I'm going to go to sleep."

With any luck, she'd wake up after this whole disaster was over - or she'd be too dead to wake up at all. Either way, no more stress.

" _Finally_."

Yumiko cracked a baleful eye at the other woman - who was looking far too smug for someone who was just inches away from being murdered. "I'm never letting you drive again."

"But what if-"

"Never."

"But I-"

"You're restricted to horses from here on out. And maybe a donkey or two."

Magna pouted. "Fine. But only if I always get to be the one to drive the horse."

"You can't _drive_ a horse, Magna."

She waved a hand. "You know what I mean. If there's one horse, two of us, I take the reins. That's the deal."

Fine with her. Magna was actually the better rider of the two of them. All dogs would be safe. "Fine. Just please try not to kill us in the next few hours, okay?"

Magna saluted to her somewhat sarcastically - which didn't exactly fill her with confidence - but kept her eyes on the road - a fractional improvement.

Yumiko sighed and resigned herself to her fate. "This was a terrible idea."

"Or it was a stroke of genius and you're just too uptight to recognize it."

She would pinch her if she wasn't so scared the action would send them reeling off the road. "I'll never forgive you for this."

"Uh-huh."

"I will have my revenge."

"Whatever you say, babe."

But she was determined. One day, her time would come.

For now, the sweet oblivion of sleep was the only indulgence she could grant herself.

**Author's Note:**

> it's okay, Magna. You're still a better driver than me ;)
> 
> So, sexual assault is actually a pretty big problem when it comes to driving instructors/tests, which I was not aware of. So, um, we should probably talk about that more?
> 
> As someone who's needed medication a lot in their life, I've always wondered how people who need it for mental or physical health conditions cope in an Apocolypse (particularly since it's a high-stress/traumatic environment).
> 
> Also I had some feedback from someone about how they find Yumiko rather soft/weak in the flashbacks from my last fic, compared to her character on the show. And I just want y'all to know that is intentional on my part. Whilst I don't necessarily view her as weak in flashbacks (she has an inner strength that comes out at certain times) this is at the very beginning of the Apocolypse. She still has ten more years of hell to go through before she becomes the Yumiko we see on the show. She hasn't even killed anyone yet at this point, and that action is a huge moment for her character in terms of development.
> 
> It also bears reminding that she's just been through hell. She's lost everyone she's ever loved, her career, her world. Magna's coping better because at this point in time, Miko is her world. After prison, she was all she had. So she hasn't really lost anything. The world was dangerous and violent and horrible to her before all this. Nothing's really changed except that danger being far more prevalent.
> 
> Miko is struggling. A lot. As I think any of us would be.
> 
> It's not that she's never dealt with trauma before or that she isn't strong, it's that she's never dealt with this before. She's experienced loss and personal suffering. But she hasn't been in the midst of such violence and horror until now, a kill or be killed world.
> 
> She had all these plans for herself, things she was going to do with her life, she had a career that she worked her ass off for - and it's all gone. Her dreams, her plans, her world. They're all gone.
> 
> It also bears mentioning that, in the last fic, during the flashbacks there are some things that are very triggering for Miko, same with this fic, that will be revealed later on the series. So given the fact that she was on the verge of panic attack but still able to somewhat keep her cool whilst stitching Magna up, I salute her. 
> 
> So yeah, she's not quite the badass we're used to but that doesn't mean she's not still a badass.
> 
> I don't like the idea that being strong means you can't also be vulnerable.


End file.
